Space Sims/Strategy Games Catch-All

Oh man. And I just got my bonus...

Aww, man! I was going to give this a shot, but if it's even more dreadfully non-interactive and dead than Distant Worlds, I guess it's off the list.

In my next review I'm gonna turn all the AI off, so we'll see, but the universe isn't as alive as DW, so that's something to consider also. I figure if you're gonna give the player the option to automate so much, you still need to give them plenty to do. I'm not sure StarDrive succeeds at that yet.

Veloxi wrote:

In my next review I'm gonna turn all the AI off, so we'll see, but the universe isn't as alive as DW, so that's something to consider also. I figure if you're gonna give the player the option to automate so much, you still need to give them plenty to do. I'm not sure StarDrive succeeds at that yet.

Nice review, looking forward the the follow-up.

I was totally confused by you saying "I'm gonna turn all the AI off" until I actually read the review.

Hows the performance for StarDrive? Last I heard it had some pretty gnarly issues with slowdowns and multicore issues.

A new game with multicore issues? Hmmm. Not a good sign. But then, it's only a 20 year old technology...

In Total Biscuit's StarDrive video that I linked a page or two back he shows some of the performance issues in the late game (fast-forward to last 1/3 of it). And at one point it fatally crashes him out. No idea if that's a recent build or not but it's something to consider I guess.

Hey guys, wanna watch me die a lot in TIE Fighter? OF course you do!

http://www.spacegamejunkie.com/revie...

Welp, I put some time into the just-released Strike Suit Infinity, and I find I might like it more than Strike Suit Zero. Why? No pesky mission objectives to get in the way of the slaughter, just pure gun and missile play, which was the best part of the game really.

Well the half-price for owners price tag makes it seem a little more reasonable.

Stele wrote:

Well the half-price for owners price tag makes it seem a little more reasonable.

Does that deal have an expiration? I haven't dug into Strike Suit far enough to know if it will grab me... I stopped playing once I couldn't work out how to reverse the right analog stick on my XBox controller. My tolerance for fiddling with settings has been extremely low these past few weeks.

Veloxi wrote:

Welp, I put some time into the just-released Strike Suit Infinity, and I find I might like it more than Strike Suit Zero. Why? No pesky mission objectives to get in the way of the slaughter, just pure gun and missile play, which was the best part of the game really.

So, are you stuck in the Strike Suit in Infinity or can you fly the other fighters? I keep trying to finish Zero but being forced the use the actual Strike Suit annoys the heck out of me. Love the rest of the game though.

Rezzy wrote:

Does that deal have an expiration?

Not sure, but if you didn't like the controls in SSZ, they're pretty much the exact same here. :/

LockAndLoad wrote:

So, are you stuck in the Strike Suit in Infinity or can you fly the other fighters? I keep trying to finish Zero but being forced the use the actual Strike Suit annoys the heck out of me. Love the rest of the game though.

It looks like other craft can be unlocked once you have enough points/credits/whatever, but I've not gotten that far so you just start with the Strike Suit.

Veloxi wrote:
Rezzy wrote:

Does that deal have an expiration?

Not sure, but if you didn't like the controls in SSZ, they're pretty much the exact same here. :/

I liked what I saw, my only issue was not being able to quickly figure out how to invert the right analog stick. That's one of those issues where my brain just rebels. It's correct on the left, and then flipped on the right. I dug into some menus, got to a re-map controls section, and then couldn't immediately figure out what it wanted me to do to accomplish anything. So I put it on a back burner.

Oh, well here, all it wants to you to accomplish is space-based MURDER.

So apparently Star Command is out for iOS today. Anyone try it?

Veloxi wrote:

So apparently Star Command is out for iOS today. Anyone try it?

What's that?

*checks Ipad*

*purchases*

Now when is work finished?

I read a preview of Star Command a little while ago and it wasn't very glowing. Though my expectations of it dropped somewhat when I learned it was for iOS. Has it improved much on release?

Im loving Star Command

Good, now why?

Veloxi wrote:

Good, now why? ;)

'Cause

Citizen86 wrote:
Veloxi wrote:

Good, now why? ;)

'Cause

Oh, of course. That ol' chestnut...

Actually, Citizen, your terseness reminded me of one of my favorite little scenes from the pilot episode of Firefly (which I can't find video for, so the script will have to do):

MAL
Ain't no way in the 'verse they could find that compartment, even-- (stops talking as Dobson walks past)
Even if they were lookin' for it.

ZOE
Why not?

Mal is thrown by the question.

MAL
'Cause... ?

ZOE
Oh yeah, this is gonna go great.

MAL
If anyone gets nosy, just, you know...
shoot 'em.

ZOE
Shoot 'em?

MAL
Politely.

Ah, here we go, around 26 minutes in - http://www.hulu.com/watch/4569

Haha, love it! But also painful at the same time...

I played Star Command a bit during lunch break. It seems pretty interesting. I thought it would be more like Game Dev Story or something along those lines (similar art direction), but it's not quite the same.

You hire a crew, build some rooms in your ship, like gun rooms, healing room, dodge room? The room that your crew is working in designates their color and their ability. So people working in the healing room heal, people on the bridge or in the gun rooms can attack if you get boarded (and you get boarded often), people in the engine room and dodge room are yellow, and they repair stuff (and they will repair a lot).

It's actually been challenging so far, which is nice. It does seem so far after maybe 45 minutes of gameplay that the majority of people you meet are hostile.... but there is somewhat of a story in the game, not sure if it's the same each playthrough or not.

I'll play it again tonight unless I'm trucking along the European coast

Thanks for the thoughts on SC, Citizen.

In other news, latest podcast is up, talking about the sweet, sweet highs and many, many lows of Star Trek Gaming:

http://www.spacegamejunkie.com/featu...

Enjoy!

YESSSSS

Veloxi wrote:

YESSSSS

Oh my god

That video just blew every Geek circuit I had

Veloxi wrote:

YESSSSS

Haha, I'm not sure which was more hilarious to include: Community or Pigs In Space.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Haha, I'm not sure which was more hilarious to include: Community or Pigs In Space.

That they're both in there makes me love it that much more.

I ran across a user review of Star Command on the always informative Touch Arcade forum that seemed to address some of the concerns that I had with it. Also, I don't think English is the reviewer's native tongue, so keep that in mind. It's sort of a stream-of-consciousness style review. "cramp your hole" *giggle*

Well so i just beat it.
My first thought was that with the offered game mechanics is was too long.
I beat it so thats a plus, the core gameplay offered is average and its still very far away from what was advertised.
Imho the only thing that actually kept me interested was the great graphics and music.
Without the optical eyecandy i hardly doubt the gameplay itself would create much interest.
Again the gfx are great and whoever did the dead anims deserves some cookies.
So some more feedback.
Since you only play on your ship which does not change at all you practically play the same map over an over. (Layout changes after you beat the game with new ships to choose from)
Anything else is pretty static and sometimes feels repetitive.
Of course the hole user interface has a lot of flaws, which is obvious by all the feedback in the thread about "not getting" the mini games. There is barely any input feedback which is pretty important on a platform that is missing tactile feedback.
Then of course the hole micro managing is completely pointless, because
of a mix technical issues and odd gamedesign decisions.
First and most important your ship is nearly unbreakable. No matter how much damage is inflicted in a battle i have not once seen my ship break.
It does not matter, cramp your hole crew into a gun room and you win. You ship can be ridden with venting holes like swiss cheese and half it can burn, every room destroyed (except the one your in) any you win.
Shoot, wait, shoot, wait, finished.
The odd thing is the more damaged your ship is the more you are actually secure on it.
Fire creates mazes or barricades the enemies need to walk around or through getting damaged.
Hull breaches suck them out right away. The more holes your ship has the better.
The simple AI paired with too simple pathfinding makes enemies avoid fire just to get sucked out of the next breach.
Stay in the room, even if hit get fixed by your tech guys, healed by your docs and defended by your red shirts.
Your Engine is completely broke , 3 holes in the walls and everything burning. But the one cannon still fires.
And of course you don't need to repair anything. Keeping the holes is a plus for the next mission.
Tokens, Evading, Shields all completely pointless if the benefit of doing the "chore" is actually worse than doing nothing
The ship is just functionless stage to modify the minigames.
Just a few conditions here and there to intertwine the functions of the ship
would make a hell of a difference gameplay wise.
Engine broke? - no juice to shoot, no recovering shield, so you need to get out and repair it.
Bridge is kaputt, well you can't fly nowhere, you don't receive messages you have to fix it, whatever.
I won't even start with the controls and geometric overlapping. I mean come one traversing rooms gets worse after upgrading them ? Finding and selecting your crew can become more than tricky.
Well the bottom line is that i'm a bit disappointed because there is potential.
Other games with such flaws would be deleted alot earlier and somehow i fear that we won't see much down the road because on this platform updates have to come quickly and regular to keep peoples attention.
and if the initial rush wears of and the sales went south lacking income often means no update.
no one knows how long the android version will take and then somewhere is the pc version in the pipes and how are there suppose to be ios updates down the road?
having different development branches will be difficult to handle and having different platforms with different content will bother the ones on the "wrong" platform.
imho if you do multiplatform, make it based on the same branch and offer the same content and updates for all platforms.
well lets see how this all works out down the road, wish the devs best of luck.